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#24 | |
Newly Deceased
Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 3
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Quote:
I used three primary stories to make up a trilogy (yeah, stuck thinking in trilogies), Beren/Luthien, Tuor and Earendil, with as much reference as I could manage to the earlier parts of the story, and still try to make it somewhat comprehensible. Obviously, this only covered a small fraction of the book. It was really 'Stories from the Silmarillion', rather than any reasonable representation of the book. The main problem, I came to understand: Dramatizing the Silmarillion is like dramatizing Bullfinches Mythology. LOTR had a similar problem - I don't know if I would have been able to follow the LOTR film if I hadn't been exceedingly familiar with it. As if they didn't have enough material to cover, they added a part of the appendices to further confuse the story - er? Anyway PJ and Co. can always say, "My friend Oscar disagrees with you". It's heartening to hear that the Tolkien estate seems to be drawing the line here. I've heard things about the Hobbit being two scripts (OMFG), and I'm seriously wondering why these guys didn't just come with a monster movie of their own. I think we saw PJ in his element with King Kong - and hours-long, crashem smashem orgiastic monster movie. I get a distinct feeling that Hobbit is headed in the same direction. That stuff is all good fun, but all of the depth and subtlety that Tolkien has to offer is completely lost. The obvious question is why the hell doesn't Hollywood, with its legions of scriptwriters come up with some original material, for crying out loud? Sadly, the answer is that the industry does not choose projects based on merit, they choose based on viability studies. So LOTR was greenlit, I'm guessing, based on a study that provided overwhelming evidence that millions of people WILL run out and see this film. Tens of millions, actually, so hell, let's make it 'these films'. This explains not only the strip-mining of the literary world for material, but also delightful cultural contributions like 'Dukes of Hazzard, The Movie'. After all, the cardinal sin in Hollywood is not bringing those dollars back home, preferably with friends. I guess the point is that seeing something novel at a theater near you is small, while seeing some inane version of The Silmarillion isn't so small, maybe the Renny Harlin or Michael Bay version. 'Hobbits Of The Caribbean' (or more likely 'Jurassic Shire') will be here shortly. Oh what the hell, I know I'm going on opening night. Or both opening nights. Whatever. |
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